poverty
Americannoun
-
the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor.
-
deficiency of necessary or desirable ingredients, qualities, etc..
poverty of the soil.
- Synonyms:
- insufficiency
-
scantiness; insufficiency.
Their efforts to stamp out disease were hampered by a poverty of medical supplies.
- Synonyms:
- dearth, paucity, shortage, inadequacy
- Antonyms:
- sufficiency, surfeit, abundance, glut, excess
noun
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the condition of being without adequate food, money, etc
-
scarcity or dearth
a poverty of wit
-
a lack of elements conducive to fertility in land or soil
Usage
What are other ways to say poverty? Poverty refers to the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support. How does this noun compare to synonyms destitution and indigence? Learn more on Thesaurus.com.
Etymology
Origin of poverty
First recorded in 1125–75; Middle English poverte, from Old French, from Latin paupertāt- (stem of paupertās ) “small means, moderate circumstances.”; pauper, -ty 2
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Relative child poverty here is twice the national UK average.
From BBC
Despite its mineral wealth, more than 70 percent of Zambia's 21 million people live in poverty, according to the World Bank.
From Barron's
He cited China as an inspiration -- admiring how India's rival had "been able to systematically bring people out of poverty" at speed.
From Barron's
Yet many Mau Mau veterans ended their lives in poverty, never having received recognition from the Kenyan government or recovered the land for which they fought.
From Barron's
Where there are pockets of poverty there is crime, but that’s not unlike any other large city.
From Salon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
